Pangang Group Summons Blocked in U.S. Trade Secrets Case

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- China’s Pangang Group Co., facing
criminal allegations by the U.S. that it conspired to steal
secrets about titanium dioxide technology from DuPont Co., won a
court ruling that prosecutors failed to serve a summons.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White in San Francisco
rejected prosecutors’ arguments that they had properly served
the company and three of its units with court papers.

“The United States has still not met its burden to show it
has satisfied the delivery requirement,” White said today in an
11-page ruling.

Pangang runs the largest titanium complex in China and is
one of the country’s biggest titanium pigment producers,
according to its website.

Pangang, a California businessman and two former DuPont
employees were charged last year with conspiring to steal
information about chloride-route titanium dioxide, a white
pigment used in paint, plastics and paper.

The U.S. defendants sold the confidential information to
Pangang so it could develop a large-scale factory in Chongqing,
prosecutors alleged. DuPont, based in Wilmington, Delaware, is
the world’s largest manufacturer of titanium dioxide, and won’t
sell or license its technology to Chinese companies.

The U.S. encountered difficulty delivering notice of the
charges to the corporate defendants, leading the court to
initially quash service against them last year.